Deep-water port

ABSTRACT

An integrated deepwater offshore port includes at least one constructed platform, having a pier deck upper portion and an breakwater lower portion. The port sits in deep water as a structure independent of dry land or any structure thereon. The breakwater lower portion includes a plurality of prefabricated perforated modular marine structure units capable of interconnection. The prefabricated perforated modular marine structure units are anchored to a seabed by means of piles partially buried into the seabed and mechanically secured to the prefabricated perforated modular marine structure units.

CROSS-REFERENCE TO RELATED APPLICATIONS

This application is a Continuation-In-Part of U.S. patent applicationSer. No. 13/144,394 filed on Nov. 15, 2011, now pending, which is theU.S. national phase entry of PCT Application No. PCT/IL2010/000036 filedon Jan. 14, 2010, now expired, which claims the benefit of U.S.Provisional Application No. 61/144,745 filed on Jan. 15, 2009, nowexpired.

FIELD OF THE INVENTION

This invention relates to natural deep-water ports located offshore andmethods for their construction and more particularly to modularconstruction of deep-water ports that contain a breakwater as anintegral component of the port.

BACKGROUND OF THE INVENTION

The increasing globalization of the world economy has led to increaseddemands for international shipping. As a result of this increaseddemand, more and more cargo companies are placing orders for “jumbo”container ships with capacities of over 14,800 TEU (1 TEU or“Twenty-Foot Equivalent Unit”=1445 ft³=the volume equal to that occupiedby a 20′×8 ½′×8 ½′ container) (J. Svendsen and J. Tiedemann, “The BigShips Are Coming,” web site article dated Jul. 17, 2007:http://containerinfo.co.ohost.de). While these large ships can improvethe efficiency by which goods are transported, only some 20 portsworldwide can handle them, leading to additional transportation costsand loss of time due to the ensuing necessity of transshipment from a“hub port” to the cargo's ultimate destination.

Several obstacles hinder the development of additional ports capable ofhandling tomorrow's jumbo cargo ships. One is the lack of availablecoastal land for ports. Not only is the amount of coastal land suitablefor port development inherently limited, but coastal land in general isvaluable and desirable for development for other purposes (e.g.residential). A second obstacle is the lack of sufficiently deep waternear the coast and the massive expense that additional dredging andconstruction of retaining walls entails. For example, between 2000 and2005, the Kill van Kull channel (New York/New Jersey) was deepened from35 feet to 45 feet at a cost of $360 million, and the project currentlyunderway to dredge the channel to the 50 foot depth required for7000-8000 TEU capacity ships will add more than $900 million to theoverall cost.

There is a further fundamental obstacle to the development of newdeep-water ports accessible to jumbo container ships, namely, the way inwhich ports are normally engineered. The basic design of seaports hasremained essentially unchanged since the time of the Roman Empire: abreakwater is constructed to provide a harbor (i.e. area of calm water),and the port constructed within that harbor. While this design has beenuseful for literally two millennia, it suffers from three weaknessesthat limit its usefulness to contemporary port design: (1) constructionof the breakwater adds significantly to the cost of the seaport(one-third of the total)—and the cost of the breakwater increases as thesquare of its depth; (2) the need for constant dredging on the landwardside of the breakwater adds additional expense to the maintenance of theport; (3) the wide slope of the breakwater prevents mooring of ships inclose proximity to it, wasting the deepest and hence most useful part ofthe harbor.

In the face of these obstacles, it is of vital importance that new waysof thinking about seaport design be found. Such new approaches are stilllacking, however. In U.S. Pat. Nos. 5,803,659 and 6,017,167, Chatteydisclosed a method of using modular caissons for seaport construction orexpansion. While this invention has the cost advantages brought about bythe modularity and portability of the caissons used, the port itselfremains tied to land, and hence does not remove the need for theexpensive dredging operations described above in cases where the wateris not sufficiently deep.

Others have disclosed various means of constructing modular underwaterbreakwaters (e.g. the inventions disclosed in U.S. Pat Nos. 1,816,095;3,844,125; 4,502,816; 4,978,247; and 5,393,169), but these breakwatersare generally designed for prevention of beach erosion rather than foruse in a port. Even those modular units intended for use in constructionof harbor breakwaters (e.g. those disclosed in U.S. Pat. Nos. 3,614,866;4,347,017; and 5,620,280), while reducing costs of harbor construction,envision construction of a breakwater and the piers as separateentities.

U.S. Pat. No. 6,234,714 discloses a pier with a nominally integratedbreakwater. As with the above-referenced patents, however, thebreakwater and pier are in fact independent structures, in which thebreakwater comprises a mound of sand, gravel, rocks, and/or rubble piledup against the seaward side of the pier, upon which a plurality ofcaisson-like structures are placed. Thus, this design also suffers fromthe problems that the breakwater cannot be constructed without extensivedredging operations and that the breakwater and the pier are not asingle modular structure.

Thus, there remains a need for a new paradigm for deep-water port designand construction. In order to solve the problems discussed above, whatis needed is a deep-water port in which the breakwater is integratedinto the port itself, eliminating the costs of a dedicated breakwaterconstruction and maintenance; in which the port itself can beconstructed in deep water without the need for additional dredging; andin which the port can be built as an independent structure not needingany direct connection to dry land, eliminating the need for free coastalland as a prerequisite for port construction or expansion. The presentinvention is designed to meed these long-felt needs.

SUMMARY OF THE INVENTION

The present invention provides a solution to the problems describedabove and an answer to the need for a new way of thinking about portdesign. It is one object of the present invention to provide anintegrated deepwater offshore port, comprising at least one constructedplatform, having a pier deck upper portion and an breakwater lowerportion, said port sits in deep water as a structure independent of dryland or any structure thereon; said breakwater lower portion comprises aplurality of prefabricated perforated modular marine structure units 10capable of interconnection.

It is a core purpose of the present invention to provide theprefabricated perforated modular marine structure units anchored to aseabed by means of piles partially buried into said seabed andmechanically secured to said prefabricated perforated modular marinestructure units.

It is another object of the invention to provide the prefabricatedperforated modular marine structure units 10 which are at leastpartially filled with a weighting material.

It is a further object of the invention to provide the an offshoredeepwater port in which the pier deck and breakwater are integrated intoa single structure, with the former forming an upper deck and the lattera constructive truss beneath, in which the port structure is built indeep water as an independent unit.

It is a further object of the invention to provide such an integratedport constructed of a plurality of prefabricated perforated modularmarine structure units capable of interconnection to create a firmsuper-structure.

It is a further object of the invention to provide such a deep waterport with a means for natural deep water mooring.

A further object of this invention is to provide embodiments in which atleast one of (a) a habitat for undersea flora and fauna; (b) anartificial reef; is incorporated into the integrated port structure.

An additional object of this invention is to provide embodiments inwhich the integrated deepwater port is connected to structures on dryland via at least one of a bridge, a tunnel, or a pipeline.

An additional object of this invention is to provide a method forconstruction of an integrated deepwater offshore port, in which an upperpier deck is constructed in conjunction with and under-deck breakwater.

A further object of this invention is to provide a method forconstruction of an integrated deep-water port in which the structurecomprises a plurality of interconnected prefabricated perforated modularmarine structure units.

BRIEF DESCRIPTION OF THE DRAWINGS

FIG. 1 shows one embodiment of a modular marine structure unit 10 (priorart, U.S. Pat. No. 7,226,245 assigned to Kent and Alkon) used toconstruct the breakwater underdeck 2;

FIG. 2 shows how the transport of a prefabricated modular unit 10 (or ofan assembly comprising a plurality of interconnected units) to the siteof the port;

FIGS. 3 and 4 show top views of the assembled port with a cutaway viewshowing the placement of a modular unit 10, said modular unit beingshown in one embodiment;

FIG. 5 shows a cutaway assembly diagram illustrating how modularstructure units 10 are connected to form the breakwater underdeck 2;

FIG. 6 shows a view of the fully-constructed port 100 showing the upperpier deck 1 and breakwater underdeck 2, illustrating how thefully-constructed port sits in the water;

FIG. 7 shows a cutaway view of the port 100 illustrating theconstruction of the breakwater deck 2 from modular units 10 and thepositions of the upper deck 1 and of the underdeck 2 relative to eachother and to the water;

FIG. 8 shows a view of a harbor that includes an integrated deep waterport 100;

FIG. 9A is a schematic top view of a modular unit 10

FIGS. 9B-9E are schematic views of a modular unit anchored to seabed 4by means of piles 3 at different aspect angles;

FIG. 10 is a schematic view of a crane 7 mounted onto an anchoredmodular unit 10; and

FIG. 11A is a cross-sectional schematic view of a unfilled modular unit10; and

FIG. 11B is a cross-sectional schematic view of a filled modular unit10.

DETAILED DESCRIPTION OF THE INVENTION

It will be apparent to one skilled in the art that there are severalembodiments of the invention that differ in details of construction,without affecting the essential nature thereof, and therefore theinvention is not limited by that which is illustrated in the figures anddescribed in the specification, but only as indicated in theaccompanying claims, with the proper scope determined only by thebroadest interpretation of said claims.

We define the following terms to describe the invention:

Breakwater: a barrier designed to protect a harbor or shore from theimpact of waves.

Perforated modular marine structure unit: a structural module forunderwater construction, which has cut-outs or passages such that whenimmersed in a body of water, the water may pass through it.

With reference to FIG. 1, one embodiment of a perforated modular marinestructure unit 10 is shown with a shape constituting a rectangularparallelepiped 12 defined by six planar faces with lower base verticesABCD and upper base vertices EFGH. In the example shown, it is assumedwithout any limitations that the parallelepiped is a geometrical cubewith sides about 10 m long. Four non-adjacent corners of the cube, inthis case, B, D, E, and G, are cut out, leaving surfaces S_(B), S_(D)(not seen in the view illustrated in FIG. 1), S_(E), and S_(G). In theparticular embodiment shown in FIG. 1, S_(B), S_(D), S_(E), and S_(G)have the shape of part of the surface of a sphere centered at thenearest corner, but they can have any shape bulging toward the cube'scenter (e.g. an ellipsoid or a more complex shape). Four tunnels T_(B),T_(D), T_(E), and T_(G) are formed and converge in the cube's center toform a tetrapod-like passage interconnecting the cut-out surfaces. Thetunnels are shown as having a cylindrical cross-section, but they may beof other shapes. The six planar surfaces left from the faces of theoriginal cube (e.g. surface 14, remaining from side EFGH) are baseplanes by which the perforated modular marine structure contacts othermodules. These surfaces must be large enough to ensure stablepositioning of the module on a substantially horizontal foundationduring the assembly process.

In the particular embodiment shown in FIG. 1, the perforated modularmarine structures are formed with reinforcing diagonal beams (RDBs) 30extending along the six diagonals on the planar surfaces remaining fromthe faces of the original cube. The RDBs may comprise reinforcingelements, for example, steel rods 32, and material embedding thereinforcing elements, e.g. concrete. Recesses 42 are formed on thecube's surface at the corners of the module. When two to eight modularmarine structure units 10 are arranged about a common corner, theserecesses form cavities that serve as a mold for casting concrete orinjecting grout to create corner joints. Similar recesses 52 may beformed along the diagonals, as shown in FIG. 1.

FIG. 1 shows one example of the design of a perforated modular marineunit, but the construction of the underdeck 2 is not restricted to thisspecific design for the modular units 10.

With reference to FIGS. 2-4, various stages in the construction of theunderdeck 2 and integrated port 100 are shown.

With reference to FIG. 5, a detail of a section of the completedunderdeck 2 is shown. The means by which the individual perforatedmodular marine units are interconnected, described above, is showngraphically in the figure.

With reference to FIGS. 6 and 7, an integrated deepwater offshore port100 is shown which comprises an upper pier deck 1 and an under-deck 2.The upper pier deck is constructed of materials appropriate for use insalt water. It is designed for mooring of mega-ships, as a base forheavy cranes and other equipment used for on-loading and off-loading ofcargo to and from the ships, and as a temporary location for cargo to beloaded onto the container ships or to be transferred to the containerterminal. The embodiment shown in FIGS. 6 and 7 shows the upper deck ashaving a rectangular profile, but due to the modular nature of theport's construction, the exact dimensions and shape of the upper deckwill necessarily vary from embodiment to embodiment according to thespecific needs of the port itself. Similarly, the exact dimensions andshape of the under-deck will be chosen in order to provide support forthe upper deck, and will thus vary depending on the needs of thespecific port being constructed.

The under-deck 2 is constructed from a plurality of perforated modularmarine structure units 10. The perforated modular marine structure unitsare prefabricated and designed such that they are capable ofinterconnection, and are constructed from material that is compatiblewith long-term immersion in salt water. One embodiment of saidperforated modular marine structure unit is presented in FIG. 1. Thisembodiment illustrates the essential qualities of the unit, inparticular, its modularity (i.e. construction of the under-deck 2 isdone by interconnecting a plurality of identical elements as illustratedin FIG. 5), its interconnectability, and its ability to allow water topass through it. In this particular embodiment, water flows through cutout portions of the structure. In other embodiments, the unit maycontain passages or be itself constructed from smaller sub-units inorder to allow passage of water. The embodiment shown in FIG. 2 isprovided to illustrate the construction of the integrated dock, and isnot intended to limit its construction to use of the specific embodimentshown in the figure.

The under-deck sits directly on the natural sea floor and is constructedfrom prefabricated modular marine units 10 which are constructedon-shore, and the upper deck sits atop the mega-structure. The elementsare interconnected (cf. FIG. 5) in dry dock. After the modular marineunits are interconnected, a platform of at least one level is built. Itis possible to build further structures atop the platform, with theplatform itself serving as a foundation for the structures. After thework is completed in dry dock, the dry dock is filled with water tofloat the platform and everything on top of it. The platform is thentowed (afloat) to its ultimate location in deep water, at which pointwater is allowed to enter the cavities within the modular marine units,causing them to sink to the sea floor, thus creating the breakwaterport. Alternatively, the elements may be interconnected in wet dock andthe port then towed to its ultimate location.

Because the under-deck is constructed from perforated units, it actsnaturally as an efficient breakwater, providing still water on itslandward side, and thus enabling the upper deck to act as a pier orwharf for cargo ships without the need for construction of a separatededicated breakwater. The perforated units additionally can serve as ahabitat for underwater flora and fauna, and hence, the under-deck asconstructed can also serve as the basis of a man-made reef

Reference is now made to FIGS. 9A-9E, presenting schematic views of theperforated module 10 anchored to a seabed 4. FIG. 9A shows theperforated module 10 without piles 3, while FIGS. 9B-9E present thepiles 3 inserted into the openings in the perforated modules 10. As seenFIG. 9E, a lower portion of piles 3 is buried or sunk in the seabed 4.An upper portion of the piles 3 is mechanically secured to theperforated module 10. The aforesaid mechanical securement can beimplemented by any conventional technology such as welding, bolting,clamps and latches, bracing and others.

Reference is now made to FIG. 10, presenting a specific crane embodimentof the present invention. A crane 7 is mounted onto the perforatedmodule 10 which is anchored to the seabed 4 by piles 8. Numeral 6 refersto a sea water level. The piles 8 increase mechanical stability of themounted crane. Crane lifting capacity is improved also by the anchoringpiles.

Reference is now made to FIGS. 11A and 11B, presenting cross-sectionalviews of the perforated module 10/10A. FIG. 11A shows the perforatedmodule 10 in an unfilled condition. FIG. 11B shows the perforated module10A in a condition filled with a weighting material. A cost-effectivesolution is filling cavities of the perforated module 10 with sand.Weighting material within the filled structure provides improvedmechanical stability and resistance to impact of sea waves.

What is claimed is:
 1. An integrated deepwater offshore port 100, comprising at least one constructed platform, having a pier deck upper portion 1 and an breakwater lower portion 2, said port sits in deep water as a structure independent of dry land or any structure thereon; said breakwater lower portion 2 comprises a plurality of prefabricated perforated modular marine structure units 10 capable of interconnection, wherein said prefabricated perforated modular marine structure units 10 are anchored to a seabed 4 by means of piles 3 partially buried into said seabed 4 and mechanically secured to said prefabricated perforated modular marine structure units
 10. 2. The integrated port according to claim 1, wherein said prefabricated perforated modular marine structure units 10 are at least partially filled with a weighting material.
 3. The integrated port according to claim 1, wherein said weighting material is sand.
 4. The integrated port according to claim 1, further comprising one or more of the following: means for natural deep water mooring; habitat for sea flora and fauna; and man-made reef.
 5. The integrated port according to claim 1, further comprising a bridge connecting the deepwater offshore port to dry land.
 6. The integrated port according to claim 1, further comprising a pipeline connecting the deepwater offshore port to dry land.
 7. The integrated port according to claim 1, further comprising a tunnel connecting the deepwater offshore port to dry land.
 8. A method of erecting a deepwater offshore integrated port, comprising steps of constructing an under-deck breakwater and a pier deck in conjunction with said under-deck breakwater.
 9. The method of claim 7, wherein said structure is provided by installing and interconnecting prefabricated perforated modular marine structure units. 